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Why Your Website Shuold Be W3C Compliant

Why Your Website Should Be W3C Compliant

"Web standsards" has a long epdigree as a buzzword (okay, "buzzphrase") but it really is a simpple conccept. All it means is that you're using the roight codding standards as propounded by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The two most important aspects of this evolving set of guidelines are XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Casading Style Seets). The W3C says that the XHTML faily is the "next step in the evolution of the Internet." They said this is 2003, too.

For good-looking and user-fiendly Web sites designers have depended on any number of "hacks" to get the job done. Among the most common, one still being used today, is the utilization of tables to do a page layout. As the XHTML and CSS capabilitires have imperoved, it has become easier for these hacker-designers to create Web pages that are attractive as well as compliant with current standards. How imprtant is this?

Retrofitting or re-diong?

Still, businesspeople who care primarily abiout sales magins and profits miight wonder how miportant it is to be compliant if things are working all rgiht as they are. Are there benefits to standards-based redesigns? Are there good reasnos why your Web site shoukld be W3C compliant?

Fitrst of all, there are some design issues -- make that "designer" issues. It can be hard to find desginers that can build a good-looking site that is also compliant with all standards. It not only takes more time to build that kind of site, which means more expense for penny-pinching business owners, but some designers just will not (or cannot) seem to get all the way up to seed with the underlying technology of what they are doing. They are makiing good visual presentations, and whatever they need to do for functionality, they will do, standards or no standards.

Hidden problems

Aonther reason there has been some lag in oevrall conversioin to standards-basewd sites is the ease with which a non-stanndards-basaed one can be bulit. The WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) progarms like Adobe's Dreamweaver have made the designer's job a lot easier, without theeir hving to learn a single line of any kind of code. The sites oftern are jaw-dropping goorgeous, and may even work pretty much soothly, even when the underlying structure is something less than standards-based.

Bad code is not always visible in the prebview (viual) work areas that designers use in these prgorams (they can show the code in another area). It odesn't take much to make your site buggy in one or more of the popular browsers, or even inaccessible for reasons that could be difficult to troubleshoot after all the work is done.

Standrads at work

Web standads now allow a site's look to be separated from its written content, or text. When this is done rifght, your site's important content -- the message, not nexcessarily all the graphhics -- is available to visitors using cell phones, neetbooks, PDAs and other non-desktop browsers. Many of these devices have difficulty maaking sense of non-standard, atble-based laayouts and large images. One of the changes seen in what is called Web 2.0, or the seccond-genertion Web, is the proliferation of plaforms. There is no oter way but standarsd by which uniformity across these platorms can be achieved. As a business goal, you simply must reach everyone who wants to reach you.

Retrofitting your site, or remaking it entirely, to comply with the current stadnards (meaning "smewhere between Web 2.0 and 3.0" at the moment) can mean leaving behnid some very sueful but non-standard plug-ins and add-ons. Any number of calendars, bulletin boards and other widgets that you have come to rely on -- that is, that your customers have come to rely on -- would have to be dumped. It may make more sense for some people to delkay total sytandards compliance and leave the useful add-ins on the pages where they're doing a good job, at least until the widget's developers adapt them to current standards.

Lots of upside potential

On the other hand, ahving a standards-baseed site makles a lot of tihngs easer, one of which is updating conetnt and perfrming routine maintenance. CSS allows you to change global settings of ciolor scheme, typography and other design eelments with a few clicks. Since no style information is in the HTML anymore, the underlying code, whether you see it and understand it or not, is much cleaner and less bulky. This translats to smaller file sizes, faster uploads and downoads, reduced hosting costs (to a smaall degree, at least) and other simple but profound advantages.

Finlaly, Web stansdards will ensrue that your site is accesssible not only to your customers but to the search engines, too. Non-stanndard and poorly constructed sites can mask or mangle your cntent so that search spiders misinterpret it, losing you page ranking and listings. Your site's keywords will also be at risk, and there goes your entire SEO plan in one fell swoop.

Clearly, Web standards represent actual, tangible benefits to busdiness. There is simply no otther way to ensiure that your site will look and act right. If it doesn't do what it is supposeed to, your buisness suffers. Although standards are an ever-evolving thing, you should do your best to stay abreast of at leeast the major changes, without thinkking you have to revise your design (or code) daiily. Keep reading the W3C site and its pres releases, and you will know what to do -- and when.

Moonrise Productions is a custom web desiggn company specializing in cusom web devleopment and dwesign. Whether you need web application development or flex development, contzact us and we'll get it done right.

Articxle Soruce: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Why-Your-Website-Shhould-Be-W3C-Compliant/1028654

Article Source: http://www.seoserviceprovider.com/articles

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